The Ganga, especially, is the river of India, beloved of her people, round which are intertwined her memories, her hopes and fears, her songs of triumph, her victories and her defeats. She has been a symbol of India’s age long culture and civilization, ever changing, ever-flowing, and yet ever the same Ganga. Smiling and dancing in the morning sunlight, and dark and gloomy and full of mystery as the evening shadows fall, [...] the Ganga has been to me a symbol and a memory of the past of India, running into the present and flowing on to the great ocean of the future. (Jawaharlal Nehru)